


Disrepair

by VioVayo



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: AU where Haou wins, Angst, Gen, general tw for Haou being Haou, vaguely implied onesided Fusionship if you squint really hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-14 22:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16049555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioVayo/pseuds/VioVayo
Summary: There was a fine line between man and monster, just as there was a fine line between mercy and cruelty.Haou managed to blur both of them.





	Disrepair

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a series of rp threads on tumblr, set in a verse where Haou successfully fused the twelve dimensions together and now rules over all of them. Huge thanks to [s.](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltedshotgun) for being an amazing beta and helping me polish this fic into being postable. Feedback is as always very appreciated.

Ryo had long since lost track of how many days he’d been locked up down here.

The concept of days had lost its meaning the moment they’d arrived in this dimension, years ago. In a world where the sun didn’t rise, one that was always shrouded in darkness, day and night bled into each other until they were impossible to tell apart and any attempt to separate the two became pointless. After he got thrown in here, Ryo had started to measure the passage of time in visits instead. They were regular as far as he could tell – Manjoume, or what used to be Manjoume in any case, would come by every now and again to make sure he was still alive and that he would stay that way.

There was a strange sort of comfort in the predictability of this routine. Well. Something as close to comfort as Ryo was able to currently feel at least. One single blessing in an otherwise completely hopeless situation. He was, after all, a person who liked what was already familiar and wasn’t particularly fond of anything that deviated from what he knew. He didn’t like change. He didn’t like surprises.

That day – or night, he couldn’t tell – the sound of even steps that normally signalled the arrival of what had become of his old acquaintance was joined by another distinctly heavier set of footfalls. Ryo was _surprised._

He looked up as the door opened. Two figures entered the cell. Even in the low light Ryo could make out Manjoume’s silhouette, easy to identify by the mismatched wings, but the other man was one he didn’t immediately recognise. Manjoume walked over to where he sat, leaning against the wall he’d been chained to, and Ryo opened his mouth to demand an explanation. Before he could get even a single word out the stranger cut him off.

“You’ve sunk low, Hell Kaiser.”

Ryo’s blood ran cold. That voice did not belong to a stranger.

“Judai?”

A flash of gold confirmed his suspicion as the king regarded him with narrowed eyes. Next to him, Manjoume shook his head. Right. He didn’t go by that name anymore.

Haou approached, heels clicking ominously against the dungeon floor, and Ryo struggled not to look away. He’d heard stories of the Supreme King’s ability to instil fear with his mere presence but never believed them to be true, until now. As Haou stood before him, staring him down with those eyes – they weren’t Judai’s eyes, something was _very wrong_ with those eyes – Ryo felt his body shake, his pulse speed up, that unmistakeable feeling of pure terror he’d only rarely felt before. Yet he forced himself to hold the other’s gaze.

The king seemed amused. His mouth twisted into a tiny, barely noticeable smirk. “Your rebellion failed,” he stated matter-of-factly, as though it even needed saying at this point. Ryo bared his teeth in defiance, like an animal driven into a corner with nowhere to run. He wondered if Haou looked at him and saw exactly that.

“What do you want from me?” the man who’d once called himself Kaiser grit out. His voice barely shook at all as he spoke. Good. The last thing he wanted was to show how weak he truly felt. “You had no problem killing all the others, so why am I still alive?”

He hadn’t thought Judai capable of something resembling mercy. Not anymore, not after witnessing all the suffering that came with the Supreme King’s rule. In fact, the Judai looking down at him now had very little in common with the person Ryo once knew and cared so deeply about. Gone was the warmth, the kindness, the passion that had initially drawn him in, replaced now by cold indifference and cruelty and _oh god, what was with those eyes?_

Ryo was far from a virtuous man himself, and in the name of progress he’d also tread on a path of darkness, but he’d never lost himself to it. Judai, with all his limitless potential, shouldn’t have had reason to follow in his footsteps. It made Ryo wonder sometimes what could’ve happened to turn him into the person he was now, but-

At this point it barely even mattered. Judai – _Haou_ was beyond redemption. Nothing could possibly excuse all the lives that had already been taken.

“Should a dying man really ask that question?” the king asked coolly, and a shiver ran down Ryo’s spine. How could he possibly know that? The shock must have shown on his face because, for just a split second, Haou’s smirk became more pronounced. It looked eerily out of place on that face. “You can’t hide your weaknesses from me, Hell Kaiser. I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while. It’s a shame that we couldn’t meet on the same side,” he continued, reaching for his duel disk with one gloved hand to pull his deck from it. He started looking through the cards, searching for something. Ryo found it much easier to breathe now that those cursed eyes were focussed on something other than him. “A fellow fusion user such as yourself would make a fine addition to my forces. You have so much potential.”

That simple sentence, spoken in a dismissive tone that should not have been possible with that voice, made Ryo’s stomach turn. The way Haou’s eyes briefly flicked up to meet his left no doubt that the choice of words was entirely intentional.

It was yet another harsh reminder that the person in front of him was, or at the very least had once been, Judai.

“It would be a waste if I just killed you like all the others.”

Having apparently found what he was looking for, Haou put his deck back where he’d taken it from, save for a single card that remained in his hand. Ryo couldn’t see what card it was, but an intense feeling of dread washed over him, like a wave of icy cold water startling him into a state of high alert. He didn’t need to see to know that it couldn’t possibly be anything good.

“But like you said – I’m practically a dead man already.” Ryo attempted a smug grin, but the expression looked as forced as it felt, too much teeth, too much fear in his eyes for the false confidence to cover it up. He doubted Haou would be fooled, even in the low light. “What a shame indeed.”

The king didn’t seem impressed in the slightest. In fact he didn’t respond to the Kaiser’s taunt at all, instead turning his attention to Manjoume. “Jun,” he said, tone one of unquestioned authority. He held out a hand, golden eyes seeming to light up in the darkness.

Manjoume, who had so far stayed out of their conversation, had changed a lot as well. Even ignoring the wings and tails, the Manjoume Ryo remembered never would have been content quietly following orders. Instead of complaining, however, instead of even _attempting_ to argue like Ryo expected him to, he simply nodded wordlessly in response.

There was a flash of purple light. Another card materialised in Manjoume’s hand and he passed it to Haou, still faintly glowing around the edges. Where Judai would have thanked him, Haou did not.

“That won’t be an issue,” he said, to Ryo. “I’m going to fix you.”

The king flipped the cards around in his hand so Ryo could finally get a proper look, and if Ryo hadn’t known the feeling as well as he did he could’ve sworn his heart stopped right there.

His breath caught in his throat as his eyes fell onto the monster that had served him well for so many years, but what truly sickened him more than seeing Cyber End Dragon in Haou’s hands, and what really made the panic Ryo had fought so desperately not to let consume him flare up, was that second card. He didn’t know the card itself, with an artwork that was both one he didn’t recognise and yet familiar at the same time, but he knew enough cards _like it,_ and more than that he knew _Judai_ well enough that he immediately understood what exactly Haou meant by ‘fixing him’.

Ryo struggled against his restraints for the first time since he’d realised it was a wasted effort only days after getting thrown in here, clinking of chains echoing loudly in the small dungeon cell. “You’re completely mad!” he shouted, as though raising his voice would make the king any more likely to listen. “Is that what you did to him?”

A sharp nod in Manjoume’s direction caused the formerly so proud… _creature_ to flinch away. That was his future, Ryo realised with horror. He was going to be turned into _that_ and there was little he could do to stop it considering the position he was currently in.

It made him sick, made his head spin as bile rose in his throat. Fix him, Haou said. _Fix him._ He tugged at his chains harder, more desperate, but it accomplished nothing. The physical strain it put on his already weakened body made it harder and harder to breathe, and there it was, that familiar pain, like being stabbed in the chest. If only he could get even one hand free, he’d be able to reach the card from here and tear it up-

“Judai! Don’t do this!” he warned. He pleaded. He begged. Hell Kaiser never begged. “You can’t do this, listen to me!”

Unfortunately trying to appeal to the Judai of the past wasn’t going to do any good – It hadn’t stopped Haou from slaughtering thousands if not millions of people either – but in his desperation that was all Ryo could think of.

Haou of course did not care. There was no way of reasoning with someone twisted enough to even consider doing what Haou was about to. If anything, the king seemed amused by Ryo’s distress, quietly watching the Kaiser’s futile attempts at getting free still with that same detached smirk he’d worn the entire time. It didn’t entertain him for long however, and he soon raised his left hand, causing the duel disk on his arm to activate.

The blades spun before settling into place with an ominous click. Haou’s voice was firm and oppressive as he spoke over the sound of rattling chains. “You’ll learn your place soon enough.”

That was all the warning Ryo got. Not even seconds after the spell card’s activation his entire body was set alight with pain unlike anything he’d ever felt before. Every nerve in his body was screaming as he was being torn apart on a microscopic level. Or maybe the screaming was him.

Ryo blacked out.

………

……

…

He regained consciousness a while later. How long exactly… Days? Maybe weeks? He didn’t know. Disoriented, he cracked an eye open. He was still in his dungeon cell, but something was… _off._ Everything seemed to have sharper edges than he remembered, and the previously so bothersome lack of light didn’t impact his vision at all. He blinked a few times, trying to get used to it.

Haou was there, duel disk shifting back into inactive mode. Even Manjoume was standing exactly where he had seen him last. Ryo couldn’t have been out for more than a few seconds then.

Ryo. That _was_ his name, wasn’t it.

His body ached all over, which wasn’t anything new, but the painful thrum of electricity underneath his skin definitely was. He sat up straight, unable to hold back a groan as he did so. The mechanical whirr of machinery that accompanied even the tiniest of his movements felt _foreign_ and _wrong._ Cold metal plating jutted out of his chest and uncomfortably restricted his movement, and the skin around it itched like freshly healed scars.

Ryo found he couldn’t breathe. It took him a panicked second to realise he didn’t need to.

Haou was shuffling his deck now, no doubt having put the spell card he used back in. He didn’t even spare his newest creation a single glance. Ryo’s blood boiled.

The anger didn’t so much bubble up as that it exploded within him, turning his vision red. He rose, not without difficulty due to the added weight of the steel wings and long tail on his back, but it was little more than a small inconvenience and he quickly found his balance. Haou still paid him no mind. It only served to fuel Ryo’s rage more.

With strength he didn’t know he was capable of, Ryo tore through the chains holding him back. He was at the king’s throat in an instant. Cards scattered everywhere as Haou lost his grip on them, but even then the king only looked mildly annoyed at best, not at all fazed as Ryo’s hand closed around his neck. Manjoume looked like he was going to intervene for a moment, but a single hand gesture from the king stopped him in his tracks. Not that he would’ve posed a threat now anyway.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t end your miserable life right here,” Ryo growled. His own voice was barely recognisable to him and he tightened his grip. It would be _so easy_ to snap Haou’s neck just like that, especially now that he’d so foolishly been given all the power he needed to be able to singlehandedly take on the Supreme King’s entire army with ease. He didn’t know why he hesitated. He’d given up on Judai already, or so he thought at least. The sight of his fingers wrapped around the throat of a person once so important to him was painful, yes, but he had never been the kind of person to let something as meaningless as sentimentality stop him from doing what needed to be done.

What he _wanted_ to do.

_It would be so easy._

Haou seemed outright bored. “You won’t do it,” he said simply, voice clear despite the pressure on his vocal cords. Up close, his eyes truly did seem aglow with a golden light.

So easy, Ryo reminded himself, blunt nails digging into Haou’s flesh, but his hand refused to close any further.

Why?

His entire body was tense to the point he could feel himself shaking as he tried to will it to move, but to no avail. He was angry. He was _furious._

He was _so close!_

“You’re a duel spirit now,” Haou explained without being prompted to, and everything clicked into place. Ryo understood it now, all of it. Why this was the fate Haou had chosen for him. Why he was perfectly willing to gift one of his greatest enemies such strength with no concern for his own safety. It all made sense now.

Ryo’s entire world seemed to shatter around him as he realised there really was nothing he could do.

There was a reason after all, that Judai had risen to power as quickly as he had after he’d become Supreme King. There was a reason he’d found so many followers in such a short amount of time. There was a reason a person as rotten as he’d become hadn’t long since been stabbed in the back and dethroned by one of his subjects.

_Haou could control spirits._

“Now let go of me,” the king ordered.

Ryo grit his teeth and obeyed.

**Author's Note:**

> And then Ryo spent the next 3 weeks tripping over his new tail because it's really long and hard to get used to.
> 
> On the bright side, his brain now has direct internet access. Just imagine all the porn he can download right into his mind!
> 
> ...I need to stop.


End file.
